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Organisation

The ICF has no paid staff. The following is a brief outline of the organisational structure:

President:

Bernard Margueritte

Chairman:

William Morris

Executive Council:

William MorrisWilliam Morris is Chairman of the International Communications Forum. He also acts as Secretary General of the Next Century Foundation. Formerly a journalist and publisher, William Morris has been involved in the Middle East for more than 30 years. He was Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of Oman from 1991 to 1996, and became Secretary General of NCF on his return to the UK.

In October 2000 he helped set up a war avoidance team to carry messages back and forth between the then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Peter Hain and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. As Chairman of the International Media Council he has led press delegations to Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Egypt and Syria and convenes the International Media Awards, held annually in London.

He has led three electoral monitoring delegations to Iraq; the NCF is the only accredited international election monitoring organisation travelling extensively in the interior of the country. In recent years he has established the Iran unit of the NCF which produces regular confidential reports on the developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Bernard Margueritte (ex officio)A Sorbonne graduate, Bernard Margueritte joined le Monde in 1965, and was their Correspondent for Eastern Europe in Warsaw from 1966-1970. Expelled from Poland in 1971, he moved to Vienna. From 1975-1977 he was a Research Fellow at Harvard University. He returned to Warsaw in 1977 as a correspondent for French newspapers and radio. He was again at Harvard from 1993-1994 as Visiting Fellow at the Russian Research Center and the Center for Press and Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Polish television and newspapers.

His articles have appeared in le Monde, le Figaro and Politique Etrangere. He is co-author of books on Austria and Planification in Eastern Europe and author of a research paper The New Central Europe: the difficult birth of a free press, published by Harvard University (1995).

Bernard Margueritte became deputy president of the International Communications Forum in 1996 and President in 2001.

Hugh Nowell

After four years of Chemistry at Oxford, Hugh devoted his working life to the international development of Moral Re-Armament, now Initiatives of Change. He did field work in Asia, America and Europe, acting in straight and musical plays. He was responsible for UK publishing and became Chairman of Grosvenor Publications. He was English-speaking Secretary for the International Communications Forum from 1991 under the founder, Bill Porter, and later became Director of the ICF Ltd and Treasurer until retirement in 2014. He is married to an American from Palo Alto, California with two sons.

Michael Smith

Michael Smith is Head of Business Programmes at Initiatives of Change UK. He is a freelance journalist who has written for the major national UK quality newspapers, including The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Times,The Daily Telegraph,The Scotsman and The Herald, Glasgow. In the 1970s he was Production Manager at HimmatNewsweekly in Mumbai, India. Returning to the UK, he joined the editorial team of The Industrial Pioneer, published in the West Midlands. After a year in the USA, he became a founding co-editor, and then Managing Editor, of the bimonthly magazine For A Changewhich was published from 1987 to 2006. He has written over 60 obituaries for national newspapers and is an honorary member of the Texas-based International Association of Obituarists. He is the author of three books: Beyond the Bottom Line; Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy; and The Fullness of Life, as well as the booklet The Sound of Silence. He and his wife, Jan, live in Wimbledon.

Robin Williamson

Robin Williamson entered the computer business after graduating from Oxford University in 1963. From1989 until 2003 he was Managing Director and then Deputy Chairman of electronic publisher Context Limited, provider of the Justis database service of UK and EU law and official information. Before joining Context he was a founder and director of Mandarin Communications Limited, the electronic publishing consultancy, where he first met ICF founder William Porter through work with Publishers Databases Limited, a company established by the Publishers Association to develop electronic publishing.

In retirement he has been active in local affairs, serving on his village Parish Council and church Pastoral Council, and as regional chairman of national pro-Life charity LIFE.

Robin Williamson became Executive Director of the International Communications Forum in July 2001, retiring in 2013.

Secretary

Sam MorrisSam is the Secretary of the ICF. He started working for the Next Century Foundation for several years. In addition he has travelled extensively in the Middle East, and interned in the Qatari embassy of South Korea. He holds a masters in Middle Eastern politics from SOAS, University of London. He studied Arabic at Damascus University and in Cairo. He has visited Gaza, the West Bank and Israel on behalf of the NCF.

Events Coordinator

Shree WoodShree started at the Next Century Foundation in September 2012, and has since taken on the role of Chief Syria Analyst. She bravely maintains the monthly Syria casualty reports as, whilst also assisting in the running of the International Media Awards and Media conference.

She graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BSc in Political Science. Graduated from University of Leicester with a LLB and LLM in Public International Law. Recently completed LPC at The College of Law London.